City-dwelling Somalis in the UK are being given the chance to experience
traditional rural life in a hill farm in mid Wales. Sanjida O'Connell
reports on how an unlikely partnership is keeping their cultural
heritage alive

Sanjida O'Connell

Cardiff,
Wales, August 15, 2009 – As soon as the goat is brought in, Zahra
Mohamed bends down and expertly milks it, before turning back to toss
another lahooh, a type of pancake made with yeast, on a hot skillet.
Mohamed is originally from Mogadishu in Somalia and now lives in London.
Today, with another 21 Somalis, she's at a hill farm in mid Wales and
seems as at ease here as she once was in her own country.

"Everything
is organic," she says, indicating the Welsh flour. "It reminds me of
back home. I love the fresh air, the fresh food."

We're at
the Degmo Centre for Somali Heritage and Rural Life at Hamish Wilson's
farm in New Radnor. Wilson was partly brought up in Africa and, due to
his father's experience in Somalia during the second world war, had such
strong connections with the country that he became a camel boy, herding
camels through the deserts with the nomads in the 1980s. He went on to
join the liberation movement during the civil war. Now settled in Wales
as an organic livestock farmer, he wants to recreate Somali traditions
on his farm.

Somalis
have a custom, he says, of sending their children to live in the
countryside during the summer months with their nomadic relatives. "It
imbibes them with a sense of their own culture and the language. Unlike
other Africans, it means they don't turn their back on village life even
after they've moved to the city," says Wilson.

However,
Somali people in this country often do not have the means to send their
children back home. It might not seem immediately obvious that instead
of travelling around with the Mi, nomadic pastoralists in Somalia,
children should be sent to a rainy, hillside farm in Wales. But Wilson
is at pains to point out that it is the Somalis themselves who dictate
how the centre is run. A number of Somali businesspeople, including
Abdirashid Duale, the chief executive of Dahabshiil, a money-transfer
service for the Horn of Africa, have paid for the creation of the
centre.

Wilson
works with Somalicommunitiesin
Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester and London. His major
partner is the Ocean Somali Community Association (Osca) in Tower
Hamlets, east London with which he meets every two or three months to
discuss how Degmo should be run. The centre also has a Somali board of
patrons who assist in the decision-making.

Osca's most
recent concern is how to encourage Somalis to be more interested in the
environment and sustainability, and in response Wilson initiated a
programme of tree-planting on the farm. Osca is also keen to keep Somali
women's customs alive, and a programme of weaving traditional rush mats
will begin soon.

Thanks to
the intervention of Osca, Degmo now provides private family-sized tents
instead of communal accommodation. Somali families come for private
visits, and the money they pay is used to fund trips for unemployed or
low-income families.

The centre
aims to recreate a sense of life on a traditional Somalian settlement
with a series of tents filled with mattresses and woolen blankets. There
are hot showers and two large, round yurt-like tents with a cooker, a
fire and a number of Somalian artifacts. "Degmo" means settlement in
Somalian, and the idea is to create a place to stay that has an
ecologically low impact and allows people "to hear the birds and the
bees", says Wilson.

"I was born
in a place like this, on a mattress like this and with a tablet like
this one for learning," says Musa Hersi, chair of the London-based
Somali Carers Trust, indicating a wooden slab with a fragment from the
Qur'an written on it. "We wanted to come here because of Hamish's
connection to Somalia.

"We've
brought all ages of people with us, from children to the elderly. It's
about remembrance for the older generation, enjoyment for the
middle-aged and learning for the youngsters."

Migration to the UK

Somali
communities have been in the UK for 125 years, originally as migrant
labourers who maintained their families back home. As the political
situation deteriorated in their own country, they started returning to
live here in the 1970s, and numbers escalated in the 90s. Official
figures suggest there are 43,000 Somalis living in the UK, but experts
say there could be anything from 95,000 to 250,000.

Like many
other people from an ethnic minority background, few visit the British
countryside. Even though 8% of the UK population is from an ethnic
minority, only 1% of ethnic minority communities go on day trips to the
countryside, according to the Campaign for National Parks.

For Summer
Duale, 21, who is studying architecture at Kingston University, this is
the first time she has milked a goat. "It's lovely here but I miss my
hair straighteners and makeup," she says.

Hersi's
17-year-old daughter, Amal, who is still at school, says: "Dad told me I
had to come because we would be milking goats. I thought it would be
boring, but it's not. It's fun, but you have to get used to it." She is
wearing a dress over jeans and thin pumps, just as she would have done
back home in north London. Wilson sighs with exasperation and hands Amal
a pair of swirly-patterned wellies.

A couple of
sheep are brought to the tent to be sheared. One is clipped with
electric shears, the other with a pair of hand-held metal shears. Wilson
explains that Somali sheep don't have wool and aren't fat like ours;
instead they store what little fat they have in their tails. The older
generation nod sagely - the fatty tail is highly prized. Mohammed, 7,
grabs a scrap of wool, sniffs it, makes a face and throws it away.

Four
teenage boys stand with their arms folded trying not to look interested.

"It's very
interesting - the difference between Somali and English sheep," says
Abdi Elmi, 17, from Tottenham. It's his first experience of both camping
and visiting the countryside, and he is exactly the age group that the
Degmo Centre wants to engage.

"Many of
them have never been to visit Somalia. They question who they are.
Everything they hear about Somalis is negative, whether it's the
disturbances in Mogadishu, street crime in London, conflict with
African-Caribbeans in St Paul's, Bristol. Their parents find it hard to
impress anything on them," Wilson says.

It is
largely thanks to his father that Wilson was able to set up the centre.
Eric Wilson fought in Somalia in the second world war and was awarded
the Victoria Cross for bravery. Much later, Wilson junior was given the
opportunity to buy the farm in New Radnor along with 210 acres of land.
Unfortunately, he had no money. But his father believed so strongly that
his son should set up a centre for Somalis that he sold his Victoria
Cross to raise the funds.

The centre
is now working in collaboration with the Soil Association to help
low-income families visit the farm; the charity is campaigning to raise
money to send 150 Bristol-based Somalis there over the next two years.
They are also looking at replicating the Degmo model with other ethnic
minority groups in the UK.

•
Sanjida O'Connell is the author of The Naked Name of Love, published by
John Murray